Newark and the Will to Get It Done

• Author: Ras J. Baraka
• Position: 40th mayor of Newark, New Jersey
• Pages: 56-56

56 | THE ENVIRONMENTAL FORUM Reprinted by permission from The Environmental Forum®, November/December 2021.

Copyright © 2021, Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, D.C. www.eli.org.

THE DEBATE

When the city’s lead levels spiked,

we immediately made water lters

available to residents as a short-term

x and changed our anti-corrosion

system. But from the very begin-

ning, we knew the permanent solu-

tion was to replace all lead service

lines as quickly as possible. at was

our strategy: Get it done as fast as

we could, and engage the residents

in rebuilding the city’s infrastruc-

ture. Residents were supportive and

part of the process at every turn.

With a $75 million city bond, we

began replacing lead lines in March

2019, with a 10-year plan that asked

each homeowner to pay $1,000 to-

ward construction costs. I was not

satised with this. We needed to do

it faster and for free. Our amazing

federal legislators helped by pushing

for more resources, including the in-

troduction of the Water Infrastruc-

ture Funding Transfer Bill, which

provided more exibility for states

to fund infrastructure projects.

e game-changer came in Au-

gust 2019, whenthe Essex County

Improvement Authority backed a

$120 million bond for us to acceler-

ate the program and eliminate the

cost to residents.

For a program like ours to suc-

ceed, there must be cooperation at

every level of government. In our

case, EPA solved the mystery of our

lead exceedances by determining

that our corrosion control system

had waned. e New Jersey legis-

lature passed and Governor Phil

Murphy signed a law which allowed

us touse public money to improve

private property, and the Newark

Municipal Council adopted an ordi-

nance thatallowed us to replace lead

service lines without a homeowner’s

permission.

is was crucial because 75 percent

of Newark residents rent their homes,

and many live in multi-family units

built before the city outlawed lead lines

in 1952. Many of these homes have

absentee landlords, so tracking them

down for permission would have been

arduous and time-consuming.

e passage of this ordinance al-

lowed us to replace lead lines block-

by-block in an organized manner.

We were able to replace as many as

100 lines a day, keeping street clo-

sures and parking interruptions to a

minimum.

ese important shifts in law

point to the overriding philosophy

of our program, which was — sim-

ply put — the will to get it done

and give our residents the best

drinking water in America.

To date, my administration has

invested more than $190 million

in enhancements to our water and

sewer system, including upgrades

in monitoring technology, ltra-

tion,environmental systems,and

delivery infrastructure. Most were

done before our rst lead exceed-

ances,and these upgrades continue

today.

is will to get it done must be

imposed by leadership. Newark’s

Water and Sewer Director Kareem

Adeemhas been a force of nature,

pushing his sta and our contractors

to complete this project quickly and

eciently, with the least amount of

inconvenience to the residents.

Essex County Executive Joe

DiVincenzo’s willingness to help

Newark and use the county’s AAA

bond rating to secure the $120

million bond is a great example of

governmental mutual aid. So was

the quick passage of the infrastruc-

ture bill that let us tackle this public

health problem head-on.

I hope our story inspires other

governments. Full lead line replace-

ment does not have to be an eternal

infrastructure nightmare. With fed-

eral funding and imposed deadlines,

as well as cooperation at all levels

of governance, we have the power

to eliminate lead exposure for the

health and safety of current and fu-

ture generations.

Ras J. Baraka is the 40th mayor of Newark, New

Jersey.

Newark and

the Will to

Get It Done

By Ras J. Baraka

FOR the United States to

quickly eradicate harmful lead

in drinking water, we need

full federal funding and a hard

deadline to get every lead service

line pulled and replaced with safer

tubing.

I applaud the Biden administra-

tion’s Infrastructure Investment and

Jobs Act, a bill that would provide

$15 billion in dedicated funding for

lead service line replacement. is

will give America’s older cities an

opportunity to replace lead pipes to

protect the health of residents, espe-

cially children.

While lead services lines are

found throughout the country, they

are mostly clustered in neighbor-

hoods with older homes and multi-

family units, and therefore dispro-

portionately impact communities

of color. With full federal funding

and a mandate for cities to set re-

placement timetables to qualify for

such support, we may soon see the

eradication of lead in minority com-

munities — an outcome we have

already achieved in Newark.

To date, we have replaced more

than 21,000 known lead lines in 30

months,an unprecedented achieve-

ment. e project continues to test

homes without recorded lead lines

to make sure we capture them all.

We did this by developing a

strategy, nding the funding, and

making it a citywide priority to get

our project done. Part of our opera-

tional plan included keeping resi-

dents informed and asking for their

cooperation through community

meetings, mailings, and robocalls.

We also created an apprenticeship

program within the project, provid-

ing employment in good union jobs

for Newark residents.